Buhari's Legacy: An Invitation To Ethnicity Fracas
According to a national icon, Obafemi Awolowo that Nigeria is just a mere geographical representation not a nation. We will stand on this premise to drive home our points in this piece as he who fails to learn from history will be doomed to relive it.
It is a truism that politics in Nigeria stands on many pedestals, of which ethnicity, regionalism and religions cannot be underscored.
Though the first two look alike but they usually part from one another in most cases. Therefore, any step to jettison this tripod will be melody of war, imbalance and annihilation.
In fact, we don't need soothsayers to discern that Nigeria is not one as we have claimed, we are just living together under the roof of forced and false marriage.
Just to view what played out from recent appointments made by Buhari with some sections crying for equality so as to have their bites of the national cake. Then we should ask ourselves if appointing kinsman connotes good governance for a region or does appointing anyone from any part means the person is not from Nigeria?
In another view, we cannot blame those clamouring for fairness on distribution of posts as records have shown it as order of business.
Actually, in an ideal world where democracy has foothold for over 50 decades, Buhari's legacy for meritocracy would have not brought any pandemonium irrespective of where the occupier comes from. But in Nigeria where we are existing in disguise as one, any attempt to bring more hands from one part will be unfair to others as no region has monopoly of meritorious technocrats and politicians. The immediate past administration did a bit of this to South-West and met her waterloo at the poll.
According to Coretta Scott King that “Freedom and justice cannot be parcelled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for group of people and deny it to others.” So we would have supported Buhari's legacy if not for his earlier stand that 97% does not equal to 5%. As a man who always stick to his gun, it has been perceived by many that Buhari is walking his talk already. If out of 35, about 25 went to North, then where is clause
for Federal Character enshrined in our constitution, this is democratic era not military rule. So Buhari should thread within the ambit of constitution.
However, if this is how Buhari want to go, then Federal Character should be removed from our constitution, nepotism should be avoided, and career upheaval should not be encouraged. To the last two, it will be counted as nepotism for Amina Bala-Zakari to remain as INEC chairperson either as acting or otherwise, and bringing a retired soldier to head Nigerian Custom Service is a disgrace to human capital development purported by Mr. President.
Lastly, claiming that over 6000 appointments are yet to be made is a journey to Jupiter of fantasy. A Minister is different from a Media Assistant, even though they are both appointments. Also, solving one region particular problem by bringing up its minority(Northern Christians) at detriment of others might not augur well for our nationhood. So let fairness be our anthem.
As we all waiting for Ministerial list to be made known in no distant time, let us hope Buhari will be a NATIONAL leader not a SECTIONAL one.
"The political process does not end on election day. Young people need to stay involved in the process by continuing to pay attention to the
conversation and holding their leaders accountable for decisions they make".
Patrick Murphy
Ifedayo Obi
Good Governance Advocates